English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2025-2029

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected Officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Press

(Date) 
 
Mr Jukka H&auml;rm&auml;l&auml; 
Chief Executive Officer 
Stora Enso Oyj 
Kanavaranta 1, PO Box 309 
FIN-00160 Helsinki 
FINLAND 
 
Transmitted to Fax Number +358 2046 21206 
or to E-Mail <a href="mailto:info@storaenso.com">info@storaenso.com</a> 

Dear Mr. H&auml;rm&auml;l&auml;: 
 
We have been informed by the ICEM, the Global Union Federation, of the lockout that your company has imposed on the workers of the Port Hawkesbury Mill in Nova Scotia who are members of the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada. 
 
After going 20 months without a current collective labour agreement and working during that period for the betterment of Stora Enso, we find it appalling that your company has locked out these 600 workers in efforts to deviate from the pattern labour agreement in Eastern Canada that has already been negotiated with all other paper companies doing business there. 
 
We call on you to use your offices to immediately resume negotiations with the union and to negotiate a fair and just agreement that meets the pattern for the pulp and paper sector in Eastern Canada. 
 
Sincerely Yours, 
 
(signed) 
 
(Name, 
Position, 
Name of the Union)

Model letter to Stora Enso in support of striking Canadian Stora Enso workers

The 20-million-member ICEM, the Global Union Federation for electric power industry trade unions, is calling on state-run Swedish utility Vattenfall AB to intervene with its German subsidiary to resolve a labour dispute with three German unions affecting 20,000 workers. 
 
The unions, ICEM affiliate IGBCE, and IG Metall and Ver.di, are seeking a common collective agreement with Germany&rsquo;s third largest utility in order to remove wage disparities and harmonise all terms and conditions. The three unions will stage a mass protest tomorrow, 1 March, in Berlin at the annual general meeting of Vattenfall Europe AG, the German subsidiary. (Smaller rallies by the three unions have been held at three sites since 21 February in protest to the deadlock in negotiations.) 
 
 

<img height="271" alt="" src="" width="330" /> 

21 February 2006 : rally in Cottbus, Germany 
&ldquo;We feel the time is now that the Swedish parent step in and grant equitable wages and conditions to all its German employees,&rdquo; stated ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &ldquo;Vattenfall has integrated its acquisitions throughout Germany over the past few years, now it must harmonise wages and conditions.&rdquo; 
 
The three unions have been negotiating for a common accord with the Swedish subsidiary for two years. Besides bringing pay equity and uniform work conditions to workers, the unions are seeking an agreement from Vattenfall Europe AG that sale of any operations to another company will include the common collective agreement. 
 
IGBCE&rsquo;s Jobst Weissenborn, the union&rsquo;s chief negotiator in the energy sector, said the company&rsquo;s bargaining posture has provoked the rallies. He said the unions are prepared to take whatever steps necessary to ensure that the social standards of all Vattenfall workers in Germany come under a common agreement. 
 
 

<img height="248" alt="" src="" width="330" />
21 February 2006 : rally in Cottbus, Germany 
 
ICEM affiliate IGBCE is the dominant union in east Germany&rsquo;s power generation and distribution units, including the company&rsquo;s lignite mines and the former LAUBAG enterprise, now held by Vattenfall. In the 1990s, Ost-Bewag came under control of Bewag, which has been 90% owned Vattenfall since 2002. 
 
In 2001, Vattenfall acquired a majority stake in HEW, the Hamburg electric company that had previously been held by E.ON&rsquo;s Bewag subsidiary. IG Metall is the primary union in Hamburg. Vattenfall also acquired its Berlin operations through buy-up of Bewag, giving it control of over 80% of the power market in Berlin, as well as 30% of the heating market. The company also has telecommunications, water and gas interests in Berlin, and public-service union Ver.di is the dominant union there. 
 
Vattenfall&rsquo;s Europe division also includes utility holdings in Poland and&nbsp;The Netherlands. The company is a major electric and power producer and provider in the Nordic countries. 
 
Protests last week leading up to tomorrow&rsquo;s major demonstration in Berlin saw 2,000 workers take to the streets on 21 February. Anther demonstration was held in the east German mining community of Cottbus on the same day, while on 23 February, over a thousand protested in Hamburg.

ICEM Supports Common German Contract for Vattenfall Utility Workers

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />&nbsp;
In the UK, GMB union members who are engineers and technicians at British Gas tentatively resolved their pension dispute after conducting one of five scheduled industrial actions. The 6,000 GMB members came to terms pending a vote with the Centrica-owned utility on 19 December. 
The compromise agreement will allow 1,700 workers hired after 1 January 2003, to become part of the existing final salary pension scheme. The union resisted a money-purchase pension scheme for new hires, and opted instead for a career-average salary scheme for all new recruits hired after 31 March 2006. Contract information sessions with membership began last week, and voting results are expected on 23 January.

GMB Members Halt Industrial Actions at British Gas

&nbsp;<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, members of ICEM affiliate International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) voted 2 January to continue their five-month strike against US-based National Gypsum. Some 90 IUOE Local 721B members are striking the company at a quarry in Milford and at a loading dock in Burnside, over proposed changes to their pension plan, contracting out demands, and weakening of seniority rights. 
A proposal put forward by a provincial mediator, late in 2005, produced no significant changes from the company&rsquo;s initial offer. The strike began 10 August 2005, some five months after a prior contract expired. The quarry produces rock used in building materials for the US housing market. National Gypsum has been attempting to operate the two workplaces with replacement workers.

Operating Engineers Remain on Strike in Canada

&nbsp;<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Contract talks between a branch of Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) of Canada and Stora Enso were extended until 11 January in efforts to avert a lockout at a 660-worker pulp and paper mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. 
The Swedish-Finnish paper company last week extended a nine-day holiday shutdown of the mill that began on 24 December 2005. On 30 December, Stora Enso&rsquo;s North American management issued a 48-hour lockout notice under provisions of the provincial labour code. Early in December, workers passed a strike vote by 98%. Last ditch bargaining efforts to find a resolve began on 3 January, ran through the week including Saturday, and will resume 11 January. 
The key issue in talks now is said to center on contracting out issues. Members of CEP Local 972 have been without a current contract at the magazine papers and newsprint mill since June 2004.

CEP, Stora Enso Still Engaged in Canadian Paper Talks

&nbsp;<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has also promised industrial actions and strikes in order to gain early renewal collective agreements in the country&rsquo;s manufacturing sector. Some 700 enterprise agreements expire in March and April, and the union has set as a goal 5.5% wage increases, along with measures to improve productivity and training. 
AMWU has also promised industrial actions if Howard government reforms occur to existing labour law. Bargaining in the manufacturing sector is expected to be the first major test if reforms on enterprise bargaining are passed by Australia&rsquo;s Parliament early this year.

Australian Manufacturing Union Moves Toward Enterprise Agreement Renewals

&nbsp;<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Contract maintenance workers at BP&rsquo;s Kwinana refinery, who are members of ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), won a five-week strike in mid-December 2005. The 86 workers, employed by United Group, won their full pay demands of nearly A$10 per hour over three years, which will give them parity with BP&rsquo;s maintenance workers. 
The strikers along with other United Group contract workers at both the Alcoa refinery in Wagerup and the Ravensthorp nickel project were targeted by the Howard government&rsquo;s watchdog Building and Construction Commission for conducting unprotected strike actions under the government&rsquo;s new and regressive Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act.

Maintenance Contractors End BP Australian Strike

&nbsp;<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
US oil supermajor ConocoPhillips has defied both Australian and East Timorese oil and maritime workers by employing a flag of convenience ship to transport liquid natural gas from Australia to Japan. The company, which owns 64% of the Bayu-Undan gas field in the Timor Sea, was set to send it first shipment of LNG to Japanese utility customers last week from Darwin, in northern Australia. 
The company has hired no Timorese or Australian crew members to work on the vessel, said the Maritime Workers Union of East Timor. ConocoPhillips had earlier ignored East Timor government initiatives to build a gas processing facility on East Timor soil for the new field, choosing instead to build a 500-kilometre pipeline to Darwin. 
The Bayu-Undan field is in disputed East Timorese waters off the country&rsquo;s southern coast. The Maritime Union of Australia has pledged to get East Timorese workers involved in Bayu-Undan&rsquo;s new production, and both unions promise an international campaign against ConocoPhillips. This will become a topic of the newly-organised Joint ICEM-ITF Oil and Gas Trade Union Alliance.

ConocoPhillips Snubs Union Labour in Shipping

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Contract workers, employed by some 400 companies providing services to world leader copper producer Codelco in Chile, are striking for bonuses to gain a fair share of rising copper prices that have reached record highs on international markets. 
The 28,000 contract employees, working from food service to transport, struck all four divisions of state-owned Codelco&rsquo;s across Chile two weeks ago and are seeking bonuses totalling US$970. On 4 January, police used tear gas to disperse strikers from roads leading to the El Teniente mine, the world&rsquo;s largest underground copper mines and one of the four divisions. 
Contract workers earn less than half of what the 15,000 full-time, unionised workers of Codelco earn. Copper currently is selling at a record high of US$4,575 a tonne, and Chile through its Codelco earnings realized US$5.3 billion in profit through export of copper in 2005.

Contract Workers in Chilean Copper Mines Strike

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Industrianst&auml;llda I Norden, or Nordic IN, is the new name of a merged labour union federation covering five Nordic countries&mdash;Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Two federations&mdash;Nordic Metal and NIF, representing workers in chemicals, paper and textile industries&mdash;merged 1 January in a move bringing 22 national unions into a single Nordic industrial federation.
Nordic IN intends to safeguard the Nordic social model, characterized by modern and efficient social security systems, equality, democratic influence, and bargaining structures at both the local and national levels. Former ICEM Officer Jyrki Raina is the general secretary of the new federation.
&nbsp;

Five-Country Nordic Industrial Trade Union Federation Forms

Archive